It has been said that politics is a lot like war. Well, we have to know our enemy. In this case, we know our enemy all too well, we just haven't been smart enough to defeat the enemy. That entails overwhelming the enemy through TACTICS, not just strength of force. That's where the Republicans are winning. They have been able to forge out victory after victory, despite having a smaller number of "forces," simply by using TACTICS. As I said, we know the Republicans. We know what they do, and they only do one thing really well. They attack. The problem with the Democrats of late has been that the Democratic response to constant attacks has been the predictable one--DEFEND against the attacks (or, in boxers' terminology, constantly keeping the guard up, and trying to throw a counterpunch here and there). This is no way to win. Democrats need to use superior TACTICS.

Here's what I'm thinking. The Democrats, in preparation for the 2008 Presidential election, should set up a "strawman." That is, prior to any primaries, hype up ONE PERSON as being the annointed candidate of the party, and make everyone assume that that person is the one who will win the nomination in a runaway (kinda like everyone assumed Howard Dean would win in late 2004). The Republicans, having only one real tactic, will quite predictably start attacking this person, digging up dirt, starting lies, doing all the wonderful things they do when they know they can't win on their own merits (again, kinda like they did to Howard Dean when they assumed he'd win the nomination in late 2004). Then, the Democrats allow this happen, putting up only a cursory defense of the strawman candidate. Finally, after the Republicans and all their shills have completely picked the strawman's corpse clean, the Democrats spring their REAL candidate on them at the last minute, taking them completely by surprise.

This tactic was used (accidentally, of course--certainly not by design) in 2004. You saw that as more and more media outlets named Howard Dean the de facto Democratic nominee, the more the Republicans rolled out the smear machine to attack him. After attacking Dean for months on end, and virtually ignoring everyone else, the big switcheroo came in Iowa, when John Kerry burst on the scene as the new frontrunner. If you remember, after Kerry started winning the first few primaries, the Republican spin machine was eerily silent. Kerry was enjoying great poll numbers (a lot of them saying that he stood a better-than-average chance of beating Bush in November, just a few weeks after everyone assumed "War President" Bush was unbeatable). The Republicans, in their fervor to "get Dean," had completely forgotten about Kerry, and now they were scrambling to dig up dirt on him. It took them several months to get any kind of attack that resonated. Unfortunately, Kerry's emergence came way too early, and the Republicans were able to regroup in time. Had it been nip-and-tuck, with the Democratic nominee still in question all the way up to April or so, the Republicans would not have been able to recover in time.

Now, for all I know, the Democrats may ALREADY be doing this to a certain extent, setting up Hillary as the strawman right now. If you'll notice, everyone just assumes Hillary will be the Democratic nominee in 2008, none of the Democrats are saying otherwise, and the Republican attacks on Hillary are growing daily. Maybe Howard Dean, being the unwitting strawman in 2004, and being smart enough to have learned from history, is purposely allowing this to happen.

This reminds me of that scene in "Braveheart" where the small group of about a dozen or so Scots throw rocks at the English troops, run away, get the English to chase them into a ravine, and then William Wallace's full army appears over the hill to corner/surround them. It's also the way African tribesmen kill lions. They stake a goat in a field and then hide in a tree. When the lion attacks the goat, they all jump out of the tree onto the lion and kill it.

It certainly makes sense to me. When you know that all your enemy is capable of doing is attack, attack, attack, it's axiomatic that the best tactic to use against them is to sucker them into an attack that leaves them vulnerable. Since I'm of the opinion that America is not yet.......shall we say, intellectually advanced enough.......to vote for a woman (ANY woman) for President, I believe that Hillary can't win in 2008, and therefore it would make sense to set her up as the Democratic strawman while we sneak our REAL candidate in the back door.

Obviously, we can't continue to play defense while the Republicans play offense. It looks weak. It is also obvious that in order to inhabit the moral high ground, we can't go toe-to-toe (or, more appropriately, lie-for-lie) with the Republican attack machine. Simply translated, we can't beat them by becoming more like them. Therefore, we need to beat them by being smarter than they are. It all boils down to tactics. And if we ever hope to take this country back, we're going to need to start coming up with a few.

I concur Choppin... at least in theory.

The problem comes, of course, when the primaries are over and there is only one candidate for them to focus their entire attack upon. I think that there is still more than ample time between the primaries and the general election for them to mount a very effective offense.

The main problem IMHO, as evidenced by the Kerry campaign, is the other problem that you cite... namely the fact that the Dems take a passive / defensive posture when they should be on offense. They should be attacking every weakness in the GOP candidate's armor. An adversary cannot win by simply staying on defense the whole game... again as evidenced by Kerry's defeat. Kerry lost because he let the GOP define the issues on their terms and he let them personally attack him without response for too long a time. By the time he finally did try to mount an offense the game was already effectively over.

Like the old saying... the best defense is a good offense. Lately the Dems have had neither. Of course overcoming the media bias is another major problem we face, but that is a topic for another thread (or sub-forum).

Instead of the candidates, focus on the issues. Watch the ones that they DONT want to discuss, and keep YELLING OUT THE FACT THAT IT'S NOT BEING DISCUSSED.

Looks like derSchwartz has opened up the wormbin with REDISTRICTING REFORM...ouch*

Then, there's the BILLIONS MISSING FROM THE CPA ACCOUNTING TRAIL .....*poke

And the shocking fact that a KNOWN male PROSTITUTE was given "SPECIAL TREATMENT" and access to the WHITE HOUSE thru a PRESS CORP ID ....*ping

There ya go...I gots a lot more of em...those Stinkin Chickens.

This is being done already.

Hillary (who I disagree and believe can and will win unless Al Gore saves the day) is for all intents and purposes a moderate.

She is allowing Kerry and Boxer and the other losers from 04 running to her left
She allowed Dean to win in the end and he is way left

She looks so moderate it helps her.

I personally don't believe Kerry will run at all. He is a realist and can read political tea leaves.
It is Hillary's to lose unless

Hillary can easily get the nomination.
That is all a candidate is going for now.
Once nominated a female is very, very hard to campaign against, and people underestimate her in our party like we underestimate W

I think the odds are about 85 percent that Hillary has it
And 2008 won't have any surprises, any late last minute big entry.
(Unless some consider Gore a surprise). This will be a superstar race
not an underlink nobody like Howard Dean.

And as enlightened Dems, we should all love having a female candidate
heading our ticket. It will be about time. And the only one who she would have trouble against would be Mccain, and the neo-cons won't let
him get it.(And if you think the neo-cons would nominate a black woman, that lets Condie out).
She will demolish Frist/Santorum/Hagle/Spector...and it would be the fight of the century of Hillary vs. Jeb. Clinton/Bush. They won it the last time.


(Read the article I posted from NY Magazine. Every single strategy I have mentioned the last 4 months happens to be in this article out this week. It is on another thread...interesting that they don't mention Al Gore in it)

Leter to editor
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
2/20/2005

Go left, Democrats

After reading Marc Dunkelman's Feb. 13 Forum piece ("Arrogance: Not a Democratic Value"), I have finally realized what is wrong with the Democratic Party -- Democrats like Dunkelman. He seems to think that both the GOP and the vast American public have adopted a pseudo-moral foundation that a left-leaning Democratic Party can never relate to.

The truth is that the Democrats attempted to appeal to the "moral voters" in the past two presidential elections, and those attempts led to two of the most inept presidential campaigns in recent history. For example, Sen. John Kerry, instead of attacking President Bush's bigoted attack on homosexual equality, negotiated a wishy-washy message that never fully defended equal rights. The Democrats will never siphon substantial votes from the fundamentally religious and "moral" voters who relate to President Bush on issues like this, because the majority of them will never break from the Republican Party.

Dunkelman's analogy that Democrats "aren't Coke advertisers trying to win soda consumers away from Pepsi" is flawed. For years the Democrats have been doing just that, and doing it by making their Coke seem like the opponent's Pepsi. Thank you, Mr. Dunkelman, but instead of taking two steps backward and a step to the right, I'll take two steps to the left.

Gender should not be considered. The job is too important. The candidate must be the best person for the job! If that happens to be a woman, then that's a note for the history books, but should not be a consideration for nomination.

A recent poll says 60% of citizens would vote for a woman president.

I'm not going to say Hillary couldn't win, but she would face an uphill battle. And if she did win, it would be in a squeaker and not by mandate. Just look at the Electoral College map: It is even more daunting for Hillary than it would be for Average Joe Democrat. Of the 2004 Red States, there are only a handful she could even be competitive in. She is absolutely *toxic* in the South.

Realistically, it would probably be tough for her to win unless the GOP candidate just imploded.

My tactical idea is encouraging a fiscally conservative independent to run in 2008.
That siphons votes from Republicans,especially if they have a Christian Right candidate. Perot is being talked about again for 2008.Some Democrats could vollunteer to help with campaign,and even signatures if the candidate isn't Perot.